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PossieJim's latest comments
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14th Sep 2020PossieJim commented on:
Speakers Corner CommentsMany people in the UK are unaware that if one retires to live overseas, the UK pension is not indexed in some nations; even if us British expats have paid our National Insurance contributions. Most, more than 95% of the 498,000 expats whose UK State pensions are never increased, are retired in Commonwealth nations. The British government says this is because the UK cannot afford £600Million to uprate all UK pensions fairly, and yet theirs' is a disingenuous argument. This annual cost to uprate all UK pensions fairly, as every other OECD Nation does for Britain's pension policy is unique, and put into perspective, £600Million is significantly less than 0.6 % of the UK's 2020/21 forecast annual pension budget of £108.5 Billion. The UK's unfair, unequal, discriminatory pension policy has been strongly criticized by the quality UK media, viz;- http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/money/article4104695.ece & https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/pensions-apartheid-is-keeping-expats-trapped-in-the-past-p5mj2pfjf , https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-52547281# & https://www.theguardian.com/money/2018/oct/13/frozen-state-pensions-petition. Furthermore, if the Government had the courage and common sense, to increase all its pensions fairly to all those who wish to leave the UK http://www.theasiantoday.com/index.php/2015/04/22/frozen-pension-policy/, possibly thousands more would emigrate, saving the UK National Health and various social services, many thousands of pounds sterling. Moreover, to uprate all State age pensions fairly and equally could be easily achieved by a very small increase in NI contributions of no more than 40pence/week, i.e. the cost of just one cigarette from the average pay-packet and not "food on the table"; then £600million could be made available to provide the required £600Million and Britain could more honestly bask and promote itself as being a fair-minded, moral, ethical and non discriminatory nation.